Protection of pipeline below pavement subjected to traffic induced dynamic response

Failure of pipelines below road pavement results to the disruption of both the traffic movement and the consumers of the pipelines. Intermediate safeguard layer can be used to protect the pipeline from heavy traffic loads. The present study proposed analytical solutions to obtain the dynamic response of buried pipe below road pavement with and without considering safeguard based on the concept of triple and double beam system respectively. Pavement layer, safeguard and the pipeline are considered as Euler Bernoulli’s beam. Advanced soil model is used (viscoelastic foundation with shear interaction between springs) to model the surrounding soil. Self-weight of soil is also considered in the present study. The obtained governing coupled differential equations are solved adopting finite sine Fourier transform, Laplace transform and their inverse transformation. The proposed formulation is initially verified with the past numerical and analytical studies and then validated with the three-dimensional finite element based numerical analysis. From parametric study it is perceived that the stability of the pipe can be significantly increased by providing intermediate barrier. Further, pipe deformation is increases with increasing traffic loads. At very high-speed range (> 60 m s(−1)), pipe deformation is significantly rises with increasing traffic speed. The present study can be useful in preliminary design stage before performing rigorous and expensive numerical or experimental study.